


In You My Soul

by lucdarling



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Birthday, M/M, Walt Whitman - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-31
Updated: 2012-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-30 09:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucdarling/pseuds/lucdarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birthdays have never been anything to celebrate after the age of seven, in Phil's mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In You My Soul

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SidneySussex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SidneySussex/gifts).



> Happy birthday, my darling.

When Phil was seven, he had a pirate themed birthday party. His mother hid gold coins in the broiler, the cake had a ship on top and everyone wore pirate hats. His father wasn't around at all that week. (He never came home again. Phil didn't really miss him.)  
\- - - - -  
Phil turns seventeen and bought himself a car. It was second-hand and desperately needed a paint job. He spends the night driving around, radio turned up too loud and turned to the classical station. It was all his, earned through newspaper routes and odd jobs for everyone in the small town he grew up in. (Phil pretended not to see the pity in everyone's eyes. The car got rear-ended in a parking lot accident the day after he enlisted.)  
\- - - - -  
Phil turns twenty-one in the desert. Everything is covered in dust and it makes the burn of whatever this milk-colored liquor all the more potent for the way it coats his dry throat. All the guys cheer and toast to another year. (He thinks his mother would have been proud of the man he's become.)  
\- - - - -  
He's got a office near the corner, finally graduated from a cubicle and he's only 34. It's impressive, Phil's somewhat meteoric rise in this black-ops outfit but not entirely surprising. The Rangers gave him a cool head under just about any circumstance, though Phil thinks any situation where S.H.I.E.L.D. is necessary might be more FUBAR than the Army ever trained him for.  
\- - - - -  
After last year's unmitigated disaster with party hats and an office cake, Phil has this year's celebration firmly under control. There is no celebration and Phil tells himself as he goes to sleep that 41 isn't too different from the round number it used to be. (He also lies and doesn't say 'I miss you' to the sniper on the other end of the phone. This thing between them is fragile and new, not helped in the least by the posting to Belarus.)  
\- - - - -  
The big milestone rolls around and Phil wakes with a groan. His knees creak when he rolls out of bed and glaring at them doesn't make them stop. There's a muffled snicker from the doorway and Phil turns his head to look at the other man.

“I was planning to bring you breakfast in bed,” Clint starts, smile wide across his face.

“Touch my coffeemaker and die, you know the rules.” Phil replies quickly. The threat is ruined by the hand he holds out and the smile on his own face. Clint takes his hand, interlacing their fingers and pulling Phil back onto their bed.

“We can do breakfast later, after birthday sex.” Clint leers. The younger man leans in to kiss Phil and it's slow, easy, everything their life hasn't been in the last week with the news of Loki's return to Earth.

Phil thinks his birthday isn't that bad, if it starts out like this. He ends up not seeing Stark for the entire 24 hours, which he thinks might have been Steve's present along with the charcoal drawing of his mother from the photograph on his desk. Bruce gifts him with an herbal tea that smells like flowers and peaches while Natasha gives him her customary gift of Glenfiddich. The fact that the year is also his birthday doesn't escape his notice.

He goes home that night to a simple meal and cabernet Clint had been saving. They sit, curled into each other on the couch as Phil finishes up the reports and Clint reads his dog-eared copy of Leaves of Grass. The clock chimes the hour as Clint's low voice starts to read out loud _Loaf with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat, not words, not music or rhyme I want,_ and Phil can't think of a better day.

**Author's Note:**

> “ _Loaf with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,  
>  Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,  
> Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.  
> I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,  
> How you settled your head athwart my hips, and gently turned over upon me,  
> And parted the shirt from my bosom bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stripped heart,  
> And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my feet._”  
> \- Walt Whitman


End file.
